Your directives to registrar on fixing dates for SC cases illegal – Thaddeus Sory to CJ

The Managing Partner at Sory @ Law, Thaddeus Sory, has criticized recent directives by the Chief Justice to the Supreme Court (SC) Registrar on fixing of dates for hearing cases.

While describing the directives from the Chief Justice as “illegal” and one that has “no legal basis,” he also said, the directives “are unnecessary” and “lack certainty in their application.”

Mr Sory, also said the said directives are “prone to abuse, and undermines the due administration of justice.”

Thaddeus Sory made this point in a-12-page article alleging special treatment in the fixing of the date for hearing the injunction application brought by Hon. Dafeamekpor against the vetting and approval of the nominees for ministerial positions in the Akufo-Addo government.

According to him, this special treatment he finds worrying as the Registrar of the Supreme Court ought to have informed parties and lawyers of the change in the time for the hearing of the injunction application especially when the 14-days period was sidestepped.

In a wide range of issues, Mr Sory who is Counsel for the Speaker of Parliament explained the procedure for setting off dates for hearing of applications at the Supreme Court.

According to him, per the practice direction it made room for a 14-day rule within which a date for hearing of an application is usually set upon filing of an application at the Registry of the Supreme Court.

“As already noted, some applications in the Supreme Court are directly regulated by the rules of the Court itself. In applications invoking the review jurisdiction of the Court, rule 59 of the rules of the Supreme Court regulates the setting down of a date for the hearing of the application. Its sub rule (1) says that the Registrar ‘may set the [review] application down for hearing’ after receiving the respondent’s statement of case or, in any event, ‘after fourteen days of the service of the applicant’s statement of case on the respondent.’

“With regard to applications invoking the Court’s supervisory jurisdiction, rule 65 of the Supreme Court rules mandatorily requires

the Registrar of the Supreme Court to set down the application for hearing on a date convenient to the Court on the receipt of the reply to the respondent’s statement of case, or where the applicant does not file a reply within seven days of the service on the applicant of the respondent’s statement of case.

“Since the rules just discussed regulate the applications made pursuant to them, there can be no basis for applying the fourteen-day rule to them. The dates for hearing applications made under the two rules are prescribed by statute. The fourteen-day rule is clearly an administrative directive and cannot supplant the statutory provisions that deal with those types of applications,” Mr Sory stated.

“It is submitted that if the new rule is ‘grundnormed’ in an administrative directive of the Chief Justice or the brainchild of the Registrar of the Court, its legality is questionable because, in terms of article 157(2) of the 1992 Constitution, it is only the Rules of Court Committee which is constitutionally constituted and mandated to formulate ‘rules and regulations for regulating the practice and procedure of all Courts in Ghana.’

“It has been held that the Chief Justice does not have the power and authority to make rules of court, and no officer working under him/her has any such power on the instructions of the Chief Justice. This is the reason why it is illegal,” Mr Sory stated.

Mr. Sory’s piece followed a petition he has caused to be written to the Chief Justice as Counsel for the Speaker of Parliament calling for expedited action on two pending cases at the Supreme Court on the LGBTQ+ Bill.

Directives on fixing dates

In August 1, 2023, the Registrars of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal were directed by the Chief Justice to stop allocating dates to cases until such time when the cases are ready to be heard.

The directive according to the CJ was to ensure that cases filed are dealt within the reasonable timelines prescribed law.

The CJ, Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo who said this at the 2023 Annual General Conference of the Association of Magistrates and Judges of Ghana (AMJG) said the directive is to deal swiftly with cases that are ready for hearing.